


and begin from there

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Bend It Like Beckham
Genre: College, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1245592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jules struggles to find meaning in college life. Jess is not helpful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and begin from there

 

 

 

 

Jess' mother sends her tins full of sweets and fabric samples and pictures of her sister, boxes that Jules is not sure how she gets past customs. Jules receives phone calls from her own mum every day but never letters, never packages with biscuits in them. She had guessed college always came with boxes of biscuits in the post.

 

\--

 

The grass in America doesn't grow the same colour it does in UK. Jules never thought that could be possible. It's a blunter kind of green, it is ashen, it has a bit of sky. Jules can't seem to get used to it.

The college crew let the grass grow too long, too: their game slows down. Jess accommodates soon to it. Jules doesn't.

 

\--

 

They rarely see each other these days; Jules didn't know how to word it at the moment but she has assumed they were going to college to be together – sort of. Jess is her best friend (her only friend) and they barely talk to each other lately.

Jess still talks to her Beckham poster – which is the most she and Jules communicates now.

The pitch is not the common ground it had been in England – it becomes clear that Jess is and will probably always be a star and Jules is developing the small-fish-in-a-big-pond syndrome. She is more alright with that than she thought she would, but that makes her a conformist and that's the last thing a football team needs.

Jules is merely a sub in all the matches they play.

Jess, even in training, runs and runs faster and so further ahead.

 

\--

 

Joe visits a couple of times.

They gently throw Jules out of the room and Jules just sits in the hallway, revising her notes for tomorrow's history and listening to the muffled noises of sex behind her.

It doesn't last.

Jess is young – Joe is not. Not in the way Jess needs to be right now. She starts dating a guy named Ryan, a senior student who offers counsel to the juniors and lives in the dorm opposite Jules and Jess. He plays cricket; Jules refrains herself from pointing out the irony.

Joe calls her up one day and they get drunk in an Irish pub just outside the campus. Irony upon irony upon irony. Jules feels like the character in a coming-of-age movie. Or maybe _The O.C._ She is not good at being a shoulder-to-cry-on; Joe tries to drunk-kiss her and Jules calls a cab for him and wonders how is it possible that she used to be so in love with him – and she wonders if that's what people call “growing up” and decides it's the saddest thing ever. In a way, she understands Joe better now; not because of Jess -that too, Jules is only beginning to realize, but because she and Joe share the same sense of failure.

What she could never get used to is the way everybody calls it “soccer” here. The first time Jess does it, it sounds like treason.

 

\--

 

College life suits Jess. She doesn't have to be _anything_ anymore, just herself. Not even that. Jules doesn't even know what that means. Far from her family she doesn't have to be defined by what she rebels against internally.

Her defiance makes her attractive. She makes friends easily. Jules is a shadow. She stands behind Jess at parties and watches Jess as she talks and laughs and Jules is kind of annoyed and jealous, that the world knows about Jess now, that it's no longer her secret.

 

\--

 

It happens simply, like most things, and undramatically. It happens when Jenny charges against Jules with her right shoulder in training, makes Jules lose her balance. Jenny is studying psychology and has a boyfriend named Jeff and apart from that what Jules knows about her is that she is a mediocre right wing.

Jules finds her footing but it's all wrong and angled and her ankle twists in a worrying fashion. The pain she feels is blue and made of fire and that's how she knows it's not a simple sprained ankle.

Jess waiting with her at the doctor's and then, later, back at their room, she holds a bag of ice over Jules' foot while they listen to an old Elastica cd. Jules is almost glad she's injured herself, this is the most attention Jess has paid to her since their plane landed on American soil.

 

\--

 

Since she can't go to practice Jules has too much time in her hands. She picks up studying. She realizes she has no friends to talk to. She thinks about starting to smoke, but decides to try the library instead.

She tells her father what happened but not her mother. Her father just sighs into the receiver. He has been quieter and quieter these days and Jules wonders if everything is alright at home, if her leaving maybe meant too much room for her parents to share, so few ways to fill the silence.

 

\--

 

They come in late after a party – it turns out frat parties are exactly as popular cinema depicts them, but with an extra amount of boring. Jules is 18 but the seniors buy the beers; everybody greets her with well-wishes and a pat on the shoulders, but she knows it's not for her benefit – she is Jess' best friend and that's why officially she gets on with the rest. Mariah, the captain of their team, seat with her in the apple-green couch while Jess dances with a guy in their Economics 101 class. Jules realizes she doesn't know whose flat this is.

`So you reckon you'll be back soon?´ Mariah asks.

`Sure,´ Jules replies half-heartedly, the same thing she's been saying all night.

`Don't bullshit me,´ Mariah says and Jules had sort of forgotten why she is such a great captain, she is sharp and _magnificent_ even if she is not by far the best player on the team, she is a force – if Jules were still back _home_ she would call her “Guv”.

`I'm done,´ Jules says, mostly to her shoes.

`You want to be done?´ Mariah asks.

Jules thinks yes, yes, I want to be done. She doesn't seem to like football anymore.

Jess is wearing a purple top. She is a blurry spot at the corner of Jules' eye.

 

\--

 

After that party they stumble into their room grabbing each other for balance.

There's a sort of camaraderie in the mood that Jules has missed; but she knows it's only because Jess is drunk and happy, because she scored a hat-trick last Friday and because everybody loves her and she is growing up in all the ways one is supposed to do in college. Jules is not nearly as drunk but she makes up for it because she is angry, so the world feels a bit tilted tonight.

They forget to switch on the lights so when Jules says “ _I miss you_ ” she says it to the darkness.

Jess kisses her and they stumble on her faded-blue trainers and upon her bed. On the wall and even without light Jules can see David Beckham's face as he looks down on them while Jess takes off her purple top so fast Jules can't protest. Jess is drunk, Jess is drunk, she keeps repeating in her head like a mantra but that doesn't mean she is going to stop her. It's not until Jess starts undoing the buttons of her jeans that Jules starts kissing back in kind. But she kisses her angrily, she is fucking angry, she fucking misses Jess, but Jess doesn't seem to mind, being kissed like that.

Jules is drunk and angry enough for the whole thing to be this sort of unreal sensory bubble where all the noises of the dorm come muffled and subdued to her, the bed is a mess of limbs and sweat, Jess tastes of orange lip-gloss and rum, the black of the night is suddenly kind of dark blue-ish and Jess goes down on her and Jules is still fucking angry with her but she grabs a handful of dark hair, biting her lower lip until it hurts too much and it all comes out, _Jess, Jess, Jess_ and Jules comes embarrassingly quick.

 

\--

 

Jules would like to try to talk about it, but Jess finds it so easy to dismiss.

`All college girls do it,´ she says; Jules finds it vaguely offensive. `Don't get me wrong, it was great but it was just one of those things. I have a boyfriend and you... you are my best friend. I have to go have breakfast, the cafeteria closes in half an hour.´

Jess doesn't look at Jules while she says this, not even one glance, Jules wishing she could have the courage to say _FUCK YOU, YOU BITCH_ or _I LOVE YOU_ or _SINCE WHEN DO YOU HAVE BREAKFAST AT THE CAFETERIA, YOU FUCKING COWARD?_

But Jules says nothing back, just nods heavily at everything Jess does.

 

\--

 

Jules goes in for another set of x-rays.

Her doctor frowns under a professional smile.

`How did it go?´ Jess asks at dinner, flicking through the channels so she doesn't have to look directly at Jules.

`Fine,´ Jules lies. If Jess realizes, she doesn't show.

For the first time ever, Jules kind of misses her mom.

 

\--

 

It only takes everybody a month to realize Jules is not coming back to the field. It's not like everybody is going to miss her that much.

After the conveniently proper time has passed Jules request a change of room in the dorm. Jess puts up a fight of course, and there's screaming and there's tears and Jess even tries to say “I love you” but Jules knows it's not the same. She wonders if Jess knows the difference, though.

She is much less angry these days.

 

\--

 

With football out of the equation Jules is short on credits, she needs a couple of extra subjects. She picks ethics – she is thinking, quite surprisingly, about going into law – and post-War American literature.

She likes Lit. It's nice. The girls are all bespectacled and all the boys have floppy hair. The boy who sits by her in class, Adam, draws hilarious cartoons in the margins of her textbooks and he is always insisting that she checks what he is listening in his mp3 player. Jules thinks he likes her, but in the good, non-embarrassing kind of way.

And Jules is beginning to like Salinger, though that's kind of cliché.

Her new roommate is as private as Jules has prayed for, and even if Jules is convinced she is secretly stealing her milk, this whole new thing is actually working out just fine.

 

\--

 

Her Lit teacher always calls her by her complete name. Juliette. She should find it annoying but she rather likes it. Like she is a separate entity when she is in the class. The first day of snow he takes the students for a walk around the campus, he thinks it's invigorating even if everybody can see everybody's breath when they speak.

Jules wears a scarf but no gloves and that's okay. Some sophomores are playing Frisbee in the patio and it's up to the Lit class to find a metaphor that goes with that. Adam talks about “the fleeting happiness of college boys” and everybody giggles at the lameness.

Jules still hasn't picked her subject for the mid-term essay. She is not sure she is going to be good at anything but football ever again. She is not sure she is ever going to love something so much.

`Football doesn't have to be everything,´ her Lit teacher tells her eventually, in counseling and he gives her a little, awkward pat on the back and Jules thinks maybe everything is going to be alright.

 

\--

 

Jess sends her a letter.

Not a proper letter; not one of those ridiculous love letter Jules sometimes fantasizes about.

She sends a DVD. Man U. versus Arsenal. FA Cup, 1999. Ryan Giggs was just coming out from an injury but still he managed to dribble the whole Arsenal defence, starting from the half-way line and scoring a left-footed _perfect_ goal.

Jules looks down at the label on the DVD, she recognizes Jess' thirteen-year-old-like handwriting.

_Okay_ , she thinks, _you win. I still love it._

 

\--

 

Their team – no, Jess' team, they win the College Cup. Jess gets a red card before the end of the match but it doesn't matter. Jules looks at the pictures in the local paper the next day; she was there of course, hiding behind the last set of benches. But somehow the pictures seem more real.

 

\--

 

The next day to that Jules leaves the room to find Jess sitting on the floor by her door.

`Breakfast?´ She offers. Jules shakes her head. `Sit?´

Jules sits down. She can do that. She is still very careful not to touch Jules when they sit side by side. She wonders if she has grown up at all. She thinks about Joe, drinking himself silly somewhere, no doubt. Jules is not like that. At least she has her Lit. class, she has the winter, she has JD Salinger, she has Adam, the library, the noble art of disturbing Frisbee games and her literature teacher, she has Ryan Giggs and the team of 1999, she has a bad ankle and the application to change majors to journalism. Jules has this year, finally.

Jess looks older now. Like a winner, but in a good way. She is wearing a blue scarf – no gloves – and pink lip gloss.

`My mum doesn't send me those metal tin boxes anymore,´ she says. `Sometimes I think they have forgotten about me.´

`I think my parents are going to divorce,´ Jules confesses.

`Really?´

`I think so.´

Jess looks down at her hands.

`I miss you,´ she says.

Jules believes her. Jess sounds like she knows shit about what she is talking about.

`Okay,´ Jules replies.

Jess cocks her head to one side, `Okay what?´

`Okay. Breakfast.´

Jess watches in wonder as Jess gets up again.

`You look taller,´ Jess says.

Truth is, Jules feels taller, even if it's Jess the one who has won a football cup. Jules offers her hand. Jess takes it and Jules helps her to her feet. The cafeteria closes in ten minutes but somehow they walk away slowly, lingering.

It's still snowing when they come outside. And so they walk carefully. But they walk on.


End file.
